“…people still haven’t figured out what casual is.” ~ Tracy Mullin

I hadn’t returned to SLink since I reviewed them for LL back in Feb ‘08. It was a semi-cute store with one stand-out item as far as I was concerned - the cowboy boots I blogged. At the behest of a friend, I trotted over to check out the current goods and was both pleasantly surprised and disappointed with the findings. They have leveled up, but they just haven’t beaten the end boss yet.

(There is also a serious sizing issue in many of their items. If you’re not inclined to read all my ramblings on the stuff I purchased, just scan down below and look for the word “Broadzilla.” It’ll explain the problem I encountered.)

Barefoot Prim Feet

I’m happy to discover that many designers are pushing the prim feet trend. Although I applaud J’s for starting the snowball rolling down the hill, I have to say that I’ve never been a huge fan of the shoes J’s offered with their trendy little toes. SLink takes this a step (heh) further and gives us bare feet that actually look nummy. There are a couple different barefoot types you can buy (I picked the set with the wirey anklets) and they come with a HUD that lets you modify the color as well as set the foot A/O settings so your prim feet don’t look all creepy when you walk. The HUD was not very user-friendly for me, so an SL beginner might be intimidated. A little tinkering and trial and error and I was set.

Ashley Hair & Casual Ensemble

I feel that the best finds at SLink right now rests in the casual wear. Although I purchased a number of items for review purposes, I doubt they’ll live in my inventory long. Even the things I liked seemed to fall a bit short of making me squee.

Take, for example, the Ashley hair here. You’re drooling at the screen - I can see you. Yes, it’s wispy and soft and delish. Yes, I love it. But before you run like madwomen to get it, be warned, it’s no-mod. I’ve got a little rant saved up for no-mod hair in general and I’ll be posting it soon, but this one was a bitter disappointment. You get a little HUD which is pretty easy to use, allowing you to change hair colors between 3 shades and about a dozen fabric swatches for the barrette. I might have been able to live with these limitations because (in my case) the hair fit perfectly and had no elements I wanted to alter, but there was no way to add my own textures to the HUD. And, having a hairstyle with a decor element that I can’t change the texture of is just, forgive me, downright stupid. I would have purchased more hair from the store had it not been for the NO MOD issue.

As for the rest of it - this was my favorite of the outfits offered by the store and it’s assembled from individual pieces. I love the skirt, but, like all à la carte system skirts, it begs for a belt, so I had to borrow one from one of the other items in the store. The Roxy mules (which I should have gotten a better pic of, but you’ll have to trust me are just darling) are wonderful, even without prim toes. The cream tee is lovely, but should have included prim sleeves and collar — given that most pieces in the store offer such details, it’s obviously and disappointingly lacking in this item. The amber and wood jewelry set is also an almost-win, losing points only for taking the flat-textured shortcut on the pendant. Really, for a store offering innovative prim work as with the bare feet, there’s no excuse to have textured jewelry elements mingled with prims, no matter how nice those textures might be.

Halter Dress & Eva Suede Boots

Moving on, here’s a cute little halter dress which (*yawn*) we’ve all seen before. A great deal of SLink’s offered inventory will make the regular SL shopaholic stop and say “wait…I have that…don’t I?” This is a cute dress and I like it. But then, I liked it three years ago when I first bought it. I liked it the three dozen times I’ve purchased it since. And, I suppose, if I were new to SL and hadn’t bought casual halter dresses over and over and over I’d find a way to get excited about it. I had to untint the prims on the skirt (they were slightly shaded) and you have that thing where the wrinkles don’t exactly match from system base to prim. But it goes nicely with the 80’s ankle boots we’ve all purchased a dozen times as well.

Satin Bodice Cocktail Dress

See above, only substitute “cocktail dress” in place of “halter dress” and “pumps” in place of “boots.” I will say the satin prim flower on the shoulder of this gown was at least a nice attempt to give it some character, and I do like the little buttons down the back.

Tie Front Shirt & Skinny Leather Pants

Again, doing casual in a cute way, this pairing of separates worked for me. The tie-front shirt has the prim details you expect - cuffs, collar, tie and it’s textured well to … erm … accentuate your positives. While I’m not generally a leather pants kind of girl, they’re also vibrant and well done, with prim cuffs that tumble nicely down over your newly acquired bare feet.

As long as you’re looking, however, please note the collar. I didn’t change it from its on-rez size because I needed to demonstrate that I believe the name of the SLink body model is Broadzilla. Nearly everything I donned was GIANT on me. Not just a little too big, but huge. The store featured one cool steampunk cowboy type duster coat that I couldn’t even fit well enough to photograph for review; it simply wouldn’t shrink to my pixels.

I know there are lots of m->f transg’s in SL, but all the ones that I know want to look, you know, like women, not men dressing like women. Why you’d have female clothing set to default sizes that could have been designed by Gene Replacement is beyond me.

Now, granted, I am a slim avatar and I run on the short side of the runway, but there were some items in the store that rezzed gigantic. I had to adjust every skirt and most other prim items. In many cases this was easy to resolve with a little stretch-shrink, but there were some cases where I couldn’t scale down the linked items because they were already at their smallest settings. While I’m sure I could have resized them prim-by-prim, I’m not all that hip on the idea. So, if you’re a slinky avatar, beware, SLink isn’t friendly to your size.

Diamond Bikini & PVC Boots

Moving on to the slutty side of the tracks, I found this ‘kini. It’s cute and nicely textured and provides descent bum coverage, especially when using its included sarong (which does come with prim tie). It’s a little too shiny for me, but that’s a style issue and there were more muted colors that downplay this effect. The image in the middle shows the little beach wedges that are included with the outfit and they are darling as “free with outfit” shoes go. For kicks, I paired the outfit with some PVC boots that SLink seems to be sorta popular for. These are textured-on boots to well above the knee with a shoe base that flows (much better than most attempts I’ve seen at this trick). The boots offer a fetish “no heel” option which makes it look like you’re prancing about on tip-toes, but also come with a standard stiletto heel for those of us who prefer our PVC with traditional flair.

Heartbreaker Gown

I purchased the Heartbreaker Gown only to review it. Again, I have this dress in my inventory a couple times, but when you wander into the store, it catches the eye and I wanted to give it a test drive. For still photos, this is a really great item. The prims are faboo and they’re textured great. But the movement is very *meh*. The skirt is like walking around in a hard plastic preform. The blouse top doesn’t quite go down far enough, so there was a hint of bare midriff which seemed inappropriate for a formal, giving it an “incomplete” feel.

I look forward to SLink developing its own style instead of borrowing the tried and true styles that hedge the bets of SL shoppers. They obviously have the texturing chops and the sculpted prim know-how; now they just need to let their imaginations frolic a bit.

In the meantime, if you have an alt that is short some quality casual wear, you may want to hop over and snag a bit of plunder.

What, Where, & How Much:

Barefoot Beady Style - L$500

Ashley Hair - L$300
Long Tee (Cream) - L$80
Lace Overlay Skirt (Olive) - L$100
Scoopneck Tee (Belt only shown) - L$150
Roxy Mules (Chocolate Swirls) - L$200
Wood and Amber Jewellery Set - L$200

Halter Dress (Salmon) - L$200
Eva Suede Boot (Rose) - L$300

Satin Bodice Cocktail Dress (Lilac) - L$300
Paige Pumps (Lilac) - L$200

Tie Front Shirt (White) - L$150
Skinny Leather Pants (Red) - L$200

Diamond Bikini (Red) - L$150
PVC Heelless Boots With Bonus Heeled Option (Black) - L$200

Heartbreaker Gown - L$350

SLink
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sanctum/64/128/2